


Elia's perspective

by hereticjellyzzzz



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Annulment, Betrayal, Broken Promises, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Elia Martell Deserves Better, Elia Martell-centric, F/M, Gregor Clegane is His Own Warning, Harm to Children, Heavy Angst, Infidelity, Mentions Of Annulment, Murder, Post-Betrayal, Rape, Tragedy, mentions of children's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereticjellyzzzz/pseuds/hereticjellyzzzz
Summary: Inspired by a post from reddit asking about elia's perspective on Rhaegar x Lyanna.This is more a recount of what happened on elia's life, focused on her role as mother and wife. This is set in canon so there are descriptions of how she and her children died.Many fanfic writers and people in general tend to undereestimate what elia endured after rhaegar and lyanna ''eloped'' and i think that is mainly because we only know her by the accounts of other people, so i made this to be easier to try to put us in her shoes.EDIT: sorry for the gramatical errors, english is not my first language but im correcting them as fast as i  can. if anyone could be so kind as to point one it would be corrected.
Relationships: Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen
Kudos: 19





	Elia's perspective

Imagine you are a woman, not from a country with a president but with kings and lords or princes, from a world governed by a feuldal system where the ruler is the law and can do pretty much as he/she likes. Imagine there is no human rights, you are not entitled to a lawyer or a fair jury in case you are suspected of commiting a crime. Imagine that for stealing something like a fruit or a bread loaf or something similar to a wallet, the penalty is to have your hand cut off. Imagine that as a woman you are beneath a man in the eyes of the law, except in only one country of the continent. Imagine that as a noble , no matter if you are the eldest by twenty years, if yoiu have any brother he would come before you in the succession, and that if you have grasping uncles or relatives is pretty common for them to set you aside, either by murdering you, forcing you to be a septa or by marrying you, all so they can rule. Imagine that if you are a peasant , no matter how smart or righteous or rich you will be always beneath of the ones who are noble. Imagine that religion is a very important part of the continet and while weird, you could be accused of heresy and be punished, even with death. Imagine that while your country is somewhat more open minded, some things remain the same.

In fact you are lucky, you were born a princess and you are the only daughter of the ruler of your country, a country which only anexed to the rest of the continet by an arranged married and for more than a century resisted with success foreign invaders, foreing invaders with fucking dragons.

And as such you always expected an arranged married because that is the way things are were you lived. You are not opposed to it but you realize how different your mother (said ruler) treats you compared to your two brothers, which have more liberty than you were ever allowed and that is not because you are a woman but because your elder brother is the heir and your younger brother has no responsabilities and because you are meant to marry outisde. If you are angry at that, if you complain to your mother , if you merely accept it as your duty no one knows.

You are a pleasant person overall, many people consider you kind and clever with a sweet wit and a gentle heart, if there is more of you no one knows, only your brothers and both are dead now.

Being sickly is your biggest flaw but things are like they are, you endure it and you live,

Your family arranges a marriage for you with a handsome prince, the heir of the whole continent and you go along with it, despite that your future husband's father is insane, burns people for diversion and rutinely rapes his wife, who is also his sister (and you always remember that both of their parents were also full sibilings) and not only that, people in the capital has strong prejuidices against you because your nationality, your skin colour, your clothes , they rutinely laugh at your countymen calling them loose and inmoral and cowards.

Not only that , many people are unhappy with the marriage. Like the most rich lord in the continent, because he wanted his own daughter to be queen (the same lord who rejected your brother for his daughter and proposed to your mother that you married his infant dwarf son, aboy at least 16 years younger than you) and of course, there is also your husband's best friend who is a lord from a country which has a bloody history with yours... and who also is a homosexual and is fucking jelous and such, spits poison against you into your husband's ear .

Imagine that despite those things you have a fine relationship with your husband, in spite of his tendency to get lost in his parchments and never confront his father, not for his mother or for you and not for his daughter when she is born, in spite that his royal father rejects the child, citing that she smells of your country.

In fact , you are still happy with your baby, who looks exactly like you.... despite that people always complains that she does not have anything of her father's famous looks of silver hair and violet eyes.

But the problem is that the birth was very hard and left you weak, that you really thought you were going to die and the worse is that you know you have to do it again, no one in the whole continent aside from your country would accept a woman on the throne, especially not one who looks _dornish._

You try to recover and the process is lenghty and tedious but one night your husband comes to you and then you are pregnant, you are scared because is too soon but you not dare to take moon tea and rid yourself of the pregnancy, not only because it has its own dangers but because if people knows they will accuse you of adultery but mostly because you already love the child growing inside you.

Your father-in-law-'s mental heatlh keeps deteriorating and then there is a tourney were your husband was going to convince the great lords to gather their support to overthrow his mad sire but an spy of the king finds out and said king decides to go himself, despite never leaving his castle in years because he feared assasins.

You go too and you are pregnant, maybe around 5 or 6 months. There is revelry and music and joust and then, suddenly, the heir and oldest son of the richest lord swears himself to be a kingsuard, a position were he relinquish all rights, including the possibility of marriage or legitimate offspring. You are shocked and instantly know that there would be problems, the lord still has allies in the capital and has showed to be brutal with his enemies, and as the wife of the targaryen heir and the daughter of his detested late wife's friend and as the woman who stole the crown of his daughter you are in his line of destruction.

You notice your husband is weird after he is tasked with capturing a unknown knight at the behest of his father, a task whcich he fails, but you try to understand him. But then your husband, a married man with children, a man who always treated you kindly when he was around, decides that after wiining the tourney, instead of awarding you the crown of flowers as is your due.... he simply passes by your side and crowns a woman of sixteen or fifteen, clearly showing his favour towards her, insulting not only you his wife, but also the girl's father,, the girl's betrotred and your brother (three of the eight great lords in the continent). There is silence around you all and the eyes of the lords and ladies, and knights and squires rest upon you.

You are shocked and humilliated and hurt but you held your head high and retire to your chambers. No one sees your tears if you cry, no one hears you rage against the insult if you scream, no one sees pretty any much reaction at all. If your husband apologize or gives you some excuse or simply never adresses the issue no one really knows.

But you know something is wrong with him, something is off. Maybe he writes to the woman he crowned or maybe he just reads his scrolls obsessively... maybe both. Then you give birth and to your relief it's a boy. A silver haired, fair skinned boy with violet eyes and close enough to his father's look that none could ever acuse you of adultery, and with his birth there is a secure sucession. But again the birth was hard, even harder on your body than the one of your first girl... for sometime there is worry that you may not survive but you do. You have your daughter and your beatiful baby boy and maybe in your heart you can forgive your husband momentarily laps of judment .

He appears happy but then he speaks with the maester and when hearing that you were left _barren_ he says that there must be another one.

_-Another one-_ you think, when you almost die because he decided to fuck you too soon, not giving you time to recover from the first birth, when you had given him a boy and a girl in only three years of marriage, when you have done all that despite your frailness and will be bedridden for months, when you have been a loyal wife, dutiful and obedient and not even your enemies could find any flaw in your character.

And then he dissapears with three kingsguard and you hear he has abducted the woman he crowned. War brokes up when the king kills the father and the oldest brother of the girl when they come looking for her, in a trial unfair even by the continet's standarts.

You know of her, lyanna stark, a girl that was promised to a great lord, in fact the great lord who was a second cousin of your husband, a man known to be a warrior, a man with a claim to the throne, a man which has allied himself with other three kingdoms, aside of his own domain. _A man who wants to kill all targaryens._

After some months were your father in law rages, he summons you and your children from your husband's castle to his own castle. You are afraid, not longer for you but for you babies. You know the king my try something, especially since he has distrusted his oldest son way before he dissapeared, because he fears he will try to depose him.

After a while your husband returns with dust in his clothes and alone. Maybe he tells you nothing about where he had been, maybe he tells you the girl is where no one would think of, maybe he tells you he has taken a second wife, maybe he tells you he has annulled your marriage to him, maybe he tells you he will explain everything after he returns... no one knows, but he leaves to take charge of the army and he takes all the remaining kingsguard aside from the son of the man who hates you.

He dies in battle and you grieve for you uncle, a man who was a kingsguard and the only you could trust in the capital, maybe you grive for _him_ .. but no one knows. You heard that another kingsguard, ser barristan, had switched sides and now fights for the man who wants to kill all the dragons. Ser jonothor darry is dead too. No one knows were the lord commander of the kingsuard is , where is ser oswell whent or where is your old friend, your countrymen, ser artur dayne.

You are a widow now and you are trapped in the capital with the madman of your father in law, a man who has grown more unhinged with the defeat of his army and the death of his heir and you know that he will disinherited your children in favour of his youngest son but you have more pressing concerns. Your family is away and the one who should be protecting you and yours is the one you fear the most.

The king keeps you locked away and only summons you to attend court when he burns someone but still you hear whispers. You grow concerned when the the rebel army approachs the gates of the city and you are terrified when the king decides to go along with the maester that deemed you barren and opens the gates to his old friend, the man who was his hand for many years, _the man who married the woman he desired, the man whom he humlliated when he worked for him, the man whose heir he stole from him, the man whose daughter he rejected for his son, the man which soo much grievances against you._

And you are right.

Soon enough everyone disovers that the supposed old friend of the king has decided to ravage the city and kill all the remaining soldiers of you father in law. You hide in your quarters with your children and lock the doors, maybe you conceal a dagger in your clothes, maybe you hide a vial of poison in case of the worse but no one knows.

After hours your worry increases as you hear the guards being killed, the screams are close and you know the rebel army is inside of the castle, your little daughter has run off and you panick , you wonder if they already killed aerys or maybe you think of the boy, the only remaining kingsguard but then your door is smashed.

A giant comes in, a beast of a man, more than three heads taller than you and easily four times your weight, you have your baby boy in your arms and maybe you shake so much that the vial of poison or the blade falls from your hands... no one knows.

The beast, _gregor clegane, the mad dog of tywin lannister, the man your husband kighted,_ leers at you and with a speed you never anticipated grabs your baby from your arms and throws him against the wall before you can react. You scream and cry and tear at your hair after you see you baby's broken form.

Your baby, whom you loved even before he draw breath, whom you cleaned with your own hands and nursed from your own breast, whom you never hated for his father's follies is dead. You can see the broken shards of bone from his little skull, and the blood and brains against the stone and over your skirts. You wail, low and high and the beast hits you , in the face, in the chest in the stomach, you know he is going to kill you and rape you when he tears at your clothes, he is inmense everywhere and its the sharper, most profound pain you ever felt. He moves inside you and you yell and scratch at his face with broken hands and he laughs...... when he finishs and draws his great sword over you, you have a little moment to think of your girl and pray for her safety.

You die and never know that your baby girl was killed almost at the same time, that she was stabbed over thirty times.

You die and never get to see your remaining family be destroyed in their effort to bring you justice.

You die and never know the sweet songs the bards compose about your husband and the wolf maid.

You die and never get to see the boy your husband sired on his winter rose in hopes that it would be agirl, his precious visenya, the life he deemed more important than yours and the ones of your children.

You die and never know that history barely remembers you, that you are only the sickly dornish princess that the last dragon wedded, the woman who was not worthy of his love, that you are that and nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> i think i may need a beta, mainly because some things may sound weird because english is not my first language, if anyone wants to, send me a message


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